Resumen de Bauxite: : Bearing the brunt of shrinking refractories demand
"Chinese exports of refractory grade bauxite are projected to have been 840,000 tonnes in 2015 - compared to 868,000 tonnes in 2014 and 768,000 tonnes in 2013," Jess Roberts, senior analyst at Roskill, told IM. "Similarly, the average export price for Chinese refractory bauxite was $229/tonne between January and October 2015, down from $252/tonne in 2014 and $260/tonne in 2013." "The picture of non-metallurgical bauxite is pretty bleak," the source said. "I don't see the refractories market ever regaining the ground it's lost. Even if new markets do open up, like Africa or Iran, specific consumption of refractories per tonne of steel is reducing all the time, so there will have to be some structural cutbacks. I think we can rely on the Chinese government to phase out some capacity, but there will be some pain to get through first." M!NERALS' managing partner, Robin Steger, sees China's move to offload more of its excess bauxite production as an opportunity. "We aim to trade around 50-55,000 tonnes non-metallurgical bauxite per year," Steger told IM. "It is all Chinese material for the time being. As we only founded M!NERALS in January 2015, we are still ramping up, but have already achieved a significant part of our target in the first year," he said.
